Tariff Watch

[ProBang2]

Strangely... I don't see you complaining about Chinese tariffs. 
I think I will be Ok buying South Korean and Taiwanese goods.

As far as US farmers... In case you don't know, China is desperate for food.  The farmers will sell their produce because Chinese government does not have a choice.  If Chinese government fails to provide food to its people, there will be another revolution in China.

Not at all strangely...

First of all (and that is a very big "first"): This nonsense was not started by the chinese. They are only reacting.
Second: Where you buy your stuff does not matter in any way. More important: Have Taiwan and South Korea enough capability to complete replace the high count of parts from China? Probably not.

And as far as US farmers... In case you don´t know: It is, right now, a 12-Billion-U$D-Bailout-for-US-farmers necessary. (Because of the tradewar!)
 
And about revolutions in other countries.... we know, the government of the USA is well experienced.
Who can not remember 9/11?
The 9/11 1973? Project FUBELT?
Or the really (really!) very successful Operation Ajax in 1953?

But this time, there would be two differencies:
1.No destroying of a democracy for economical interests.
2.China has nuclear weapons.

[shteii01]

Strangely... I don't see you complaining about Chinese tariffs. 
I think I will be Ok buying South Korean and Taiwanese goods.

As far as US farmers... In case you don't know, China is desperate for food.  The farmers will sell their produce because Chinese government does not have a choice.  If Chinese government fails to provide food to its people, there will be another revolution in China.

Not at all strangely...

First of all (and that is a very big "first"): This nonsense was not started by the chinese. They are only reacting.
Second: Where you buy your stuff does not matter in any way. More important: Have Taiwan and South Korea enough capability to complete replace the high count of parts from China? Probably not.

You misunderstood me. 
I did not mean the new retaliatory Chinese tariffs.
I meant the old Chinese tariffs.

[Mr. Scram]

You are completely misunderstanding the situation.

Nobody is stopping trade.  We, the US of A, will continue to trade with China.  They, China, will continue to trade with US of A.  What is being attempted is to adjust the balance of the trade.  The trade itself will not stop and is not being stopped.  The trade will continue.  What is being desired is that:
1.  China buys more from us.
2.  China sells less to us.

In a few years a new trade balance will develop.

Remember.  Today's trade balance did not develop this year.  It took 30 years for us to arrive at the current trade balance between US of A and China.  This trade balance thing is not set in stone.  Politics, economics, technologies, they all have effect on trade.

I don't think you understood my post correctly. I merely reacted to Bud saying that we need to stop sending work orders to China. My response was in no way a generic response about the tariffs.

Also , this balance people keep talking about doesn't mean what people seem to think it means. Some people insist on a trade deficit being a negative thing, while most economists at large seem to disagree.

[innkeeper]

Also , this balance people keep talking about doesn't mean what people seem to think it means. Some people insist on a trade deficit being a negative thing, while most economists at large seem to disagree.

must be fun living in their household, where they spend more then they take in.
 ... wonder how long that will last.

try explaining that to your spouse ... "oh no honey it's a good thing we spend more then we take in...
yea we can do this forever."

 

whats our national debt now...$21.4 trillion

economists    like a weatherman, you can be wrong and still have a job.

[Mr. Scram]

must be fun living in their household, where they spend more then they take in.
 ... wonder how long that will last.

try explaining that to your spouse ... "oh no honey it's a good thing we spend more then we take in...
yea we can do this forever."

 

whats our national debt now...$21.4 trillion

economists    like a weatherman, you can be wrong and still have a job.

Thanks for illustrating my point, because that's exactly what's not the case and how many people simplify it for themselves. There is so much more going on than just the trade with China that's it's preposterous to compare it to a regular household. If only because there's money coming in and going out in thousands more different ways, or because countries do create both value and money on a daily basis rendering a simple in versus out comparison futile.

Let's not go down the "economists don't know what they're doing" route as it would force us to compare their insights to Trump's and his track record in regards to investments. Also understand that politicians decided about and caused the US debt, not economists.

[CatalinaWOW]

Actually weathermen and economists aren't a bad comparison.  Both deal with large, messy, not fully understood systems.  Both have problems measuring initial coditions for their models and both are limited to far less data than they would like and far more than they can process.  And both do pretty well on small short range predictions and broad trends.  Both professions have public mouthpieces who are generally far from the best their field has to offer. 

[cdev]

More and more of what some call policy space is off the table and off limits to politicians.

Think of a one-way ratchet type device that removes it permanently from public control. This is done to give investors certainty that previously they would have had to buy costly commercial political risk insurance to get.

Non-economic things will likely always be under democratic control and changeable by voting.

"Otherwise the people would just vote to fix things they didn't like".

Of course they have to figure out a way to make this lack of control over issues non-obvious.